Mug shot of Attorney General Ken Paxton from the Collin County Jail on Aug. 3, 2015.

A prominent North Texas real estate developer is fighting to keep prosecutors working the securities fraud case against state Attorney General Ken Paxton from being paid from the public purse, the Houston Chronicle reports.

According to the Chronicle, Blackard's lawsuit seeks to "halt a threatened expenditure of public funds that would unlawfully serve to enrich private attorneys at the expense of taxpayers in Collin County."

Three Houston special prosecutors appointed to the case have worked several hundred hours, the Chronicle reports, as Paxton's attorneys have fought to throw out three felony indictment counts handed up by a Collin County grand jury in July for alleged securities fraud.

Paxton is charged with two first-degree felonies related to accusations that he failed to disclose he was being paid by a McKinney technology firm when he encouraged investors to buy into the company. He is also charged with a third-degree felony for failing to register as a broker when he connected clients to a friend's investment firm, which he admitted to publicly.